Reaching out my hand,
I grasp the cold and solid glass,
while all around me life revolves
dreamlike in time and in space.
What I can be certain of
ends at my fingertips.
(Today the carol music plays;
tomorrow, spring buds will swell.
Today my hair is peppered grey,
tomorrow it will be white.)
I sit and labor here.
From these labors,
a world is born.
I walk into that world,
and from it will bear another.
Solid hand upon the solid glass,
all else writ
as if a dream,
and one that yields not
to my conscious will.
And so I do another kind
of labor for my raiment,
down from all enchanted realms,
become a beast of burden
carrying my dreams upon my back.
With one foot in my dreams
and one foot in the solid world,
I try to bring the two to one,
and keep from being pulled apart.
Max Reif
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/labors/
